midterm q 3

Question 1

Which New York-born, Louisiana-raised, playwright (b. 1956) wrote a masterpiece of modern drama, Angels in America, that deals with the AIDS crisis, sexuality, gender, and politics?

Answer 1

Tony Kushner

Question 2

Which quality of character began in realism and grew to become the dominant aspect of the theatrical experience by the mid-twentieth century, most notably in the plays of Checkov, Williams, and Miller?

Answer 2

the psychological dimension of character

Question 3

The core element of every play is

Answer 3

Action

Question 4

A play that relates in some fashion to the current personal concerns of the audience is said to possess gravity.(T or F)

Answer 4

False

Question 5

A screenwriter, as well as a playwright, Neil LaBute’s contribution to today’s theatre is a return to highly romantic dialogue, at times written in poetic verse.(T or F)

Answer 5

False

Question 6

Scenes of forced conflict are important because

Answer 6

climactic scenes define a play’s structure.

Question 7

The playwright’s skill at condensing a story that may spans many days or years of chronological time into a theatrical time frame is called

Answer 7

compression

Question 8

The playwright works with two fundamental tools:

Answer 8

dialogue and physical action.

Question 9

The audience’s demand for internal consistency in a play, in which the characters, the situation, and the theatrical context are combined to generate the action, creates credibility. (T or F)

Answer 9

True

Question 10

The term “playwright” refers to

Answer 10

a person who constructs and composes a play as a wheelwright makes a wheel.

Question 11

An independence of thought and vision is perhaps the playwright’s most important characteristic.(T or F)

Answer 11

True

Question 12

Which of the following is the most accurate statement of the audience’s response to the drama?

Answer 12

Intrigue draws us into the world of the play; credibility keeps us there.

Question 13

One difference between the playwright in Shakespeare’s time and the contemporary playwright is that

Answer 13

the playwright no longer functions as a director but is now considered an independent artist.

Question 14

A play in which events are connected to each other in strict, chronological, cause-effect continuity, and in which dramatic experience attempts to convey a lifelike progression of experience through time, is classified as

Answer 14

continuous in structure and linear in chronology.

Question 15

A play in which every character possesses an independence of intention and expression, and whose motivation appears sensible in the light of our general knowledge of psychology and human behavior, possesses

Answer 15

depth of characterization.

Question 16

The quality of stage dialogue that makes it achieve maximum impact when spoken and which requires the playwright to be attentive to the audial shape of language, including the meaning of the dialogue and the rhythm of sound, is called stageability.(T or F)

Answer 16

False

Question 17

The quality of a play that creates suspense by making us wonder what will happen next is called curiosity.(T or F)

Answer 17

False

Question 18

A play that deals with an issue of serious and lasting significance in humanity’s spiritual or intellectual life beyond the mere attempt to imitate profundity is said to possess

Answer 18

Gravity

Question 19

When a playwright has managed to make every scene, incident, character, and word deliver an impact, he or she has satisfied the dramatic demand for

Answer 19

Intensity

Question 20

According to the book,every person may be considered a playwright because

Answer 20

the unconscious stages an association of words and ideas when we sleep.